Law School Update

It has been a while since I posted anything about law school -- my life in the couple weeks has been consumed almost completely by the move. But there are a couple law-school-related items to report on.

Friday was the day by which finalists for the scholarships I applied for at downtown school were to be notified. I have not been notified, therefore I am probably not a finalist. Hubby called them Friday afternoon to ask whether all the finalists had been notified. They said they would be notifying some alternates early next week, but other than that, yes. So maybe I will be an alternate, or maybe I will be nothing. If the latter, then I will almost certainly go to uptown school. I mentioned before that I was leaning that way, but thought my opinion might change after the admitted student event at downtown school. Well I went to that two weeks ago (right before the move, so I never got a chance to blog about it), and while I feel like I got a better sense of what the school is like from that event, and I definitely feel more positively about it than I did after my first visit, and I certainly would not be unhappy there, I still think uptown school suits me better.

As an example of a difference between the two schools, when I was visiting downtown school for the first time, a current student who was there to talk to us was asked about the professor's teaching styles and the Socratic method and she said something to the effect that the professors weren't too hard on 1Ls. When I was visiting uptown school the student giving our tour made a comment that the professors don't use the Socratic method too much after the first year. Now, if the statements by both of these students are true, this would seem to represent a pretty big difference in teaching styles at the two schools. Personally, I think that it makes more sense to use the Socratic method more in the first year in order to really get students to "think like a lawyer." After the first year, hopefully, the thought process will be pretty well ingrained and the professors won't have to ask the questions because the students will already be asking them themselves.

So, anyway, while I am leaning towards, to the point of almost falling over onto, uptown school, I am still holding out a tiny piece of hope for the scholarships at downtown school, and failing that I will still need to see what my financial aid packages are like. Speaking of which, I don't think I mentioned that my third choice school, which had offered me a $15,000/yr merit award, sent me a letter telling me that I do not qualify for any need-based aid. I hope that is just because they already offered me money and is not an indication of what I should expect from my top two schools.